Just realized after walking through the new terminal at DFW that all the gate displays are running on thin clients now, not dedicated boxes.

I was there for a layover last Tuesday and had to check a connection. Got up close to one of the big flight info screens by gate B12 and saw the tiny Dell OptiPlex unit mounted behind it. No more big, hot server in the cabinet below. It's all networked back to a central system. Makes sense for updates and control, but I'm thinking about the single points of failure. Has anyone here had to work on that kind of setup for airport systems yet?

3 comments

3 Comments

sage_fox2mo ago

Wait, they're using regular OptiPlexes? Those things are just office PCs. I'd be terrified of a blue screen of death taking down a whole gate's info during a busy travel day.

leor3714d ago

Are you sure they're just running stock Windows on those things though? I mean, most government IT shops that do this kind of deployment strip them down to barebones Linux or a locked down appliance OS. I've seen it at smaller airports where they basically install a kiosk mode that just runs the gate display software, nothing else. No background tasks, no user apps, no nothing that could cause a crash. Plus they keep a hot spare plugged in and ready to go, like a second machine right next to it. So if the main one goes down, it takes maybe 30 seconds to swap a cable and you're back up. The real risk is power outages or network issues, not the OptiPlex itself.

mary8362mo ago

Imagine the chaos if one just froze up.